


Bitter Water

by janitor



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Temporary Amnesia, background patrochilles, getting absolutely lost in the sauce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25191535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janitor/pseuds/janitor
Summary: Zagreus looks for help, and learns about the full effect of the river Lethe on a shade overburdened by memories.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 121





	Bitter Water

Zagreus sighed in relief when he stumbled into the misty chamber in Elysium. No exalted shades here intent on slaughtering him, just a moment’s respite. And he desperately needed it, after barely surviving an onslaught of chariots that left him with a bad wound in his side.

He couldn’t hear the familiar low muttering that he’s come to expect. He wondered if he stumbled upon the wrong place this time, some other nearly identical vaulted chamber in this wildly shifting labyrinth. But no, once he limped past the iron-wrought gates and the stone bridge, he saw Patroclus up ahead. Not sitting or pacing around as he usually did, but standing stock still in the misty waves of the Lethe, back turned.

“Hey there, sir,” Zagreus called out, with a great amount of effort.

Patroclus turned around. He was soaked through from the river, his hair heavy with water and plastered to his face in thick strands. Despite this, he was fully dressed, clad in some ornate golden armour of an antiquated design that Zagreus hadn’t seen before. His eyes softened when he saw the prince.

“Ah, but you look terrible, stranger. Have a rest before you fall over,” he said.

Zagreus did feel like he could collapse at any second. He lowered himself onto the grass. Patroclus waded out of the riverbank and knelt beside him.

“Don’t be so reckless with your life on the field,” said Patroclus, as he raised a flask to Zagreus’s lips. 

He gratefully drank, letting the revitalizing drink flow through him and mend his body, while Patroclus carefully loosened his chiton to examine his wound. The exposed skin and the fabric was stained brick-red. He coughed a bit, wincing as it brought a sharp pain through his ribs. He healed fast, and the concoction was working to bring him away from death’s brink, but he won’t be in any shape to fight past the champions of Elysium. He said so as much: “Don’t think I’ll make it very far this time.”

“I see, then it is time for you to rest, you fought with great honour.” Patroclus’s voice came out slow and measured, unusual enough that Zagreus looked up. Patroclus’s face was partly obscured by his helm and his hair, but where his expression was visible it was a carefully neutral mask Zagreus couldn’t see past. 

Zagreus recalled, vaguely, that the injury he sustained would likely not leave an average mortal alive for long, and that mortals had complex feelings about death that he didn’t quite grasp. Perhaps Patroclus had forgotten that he was far from mortal. He laughed weakly. “Don’t worry, this looks worse than it is.”

“Please, stranger, save your strength for the gods,” Patroclus ran a hand over his eyelids. The practiced gentleness in his voice and touch startled Zagreus. He stubbornly opened his eyes again.

“I definitely won’t get far enough for that. I’m just glad I made it this far, I have a message from Achilles.”

“Go on, then.” Patroclus sighed in resignation.

“He says that he wishes you were doing better. It hurts him to think of you… like this. He knows you’re strong enough to overcome it. And it would make him very glad to hear from you again.” Zagreus was struggling to remember the exact words in his current state. His clumsy paraphrase was so inadequate to properly convey the depth of care and love in Achilles’s words. The least he could do for Achilles was to carry his message properly, and he hoped that this would suffice.

“I will honour his words, if it matters to you so much, that you carried it all this way. Now please, be at peace.”

Zagreus furrowed his brows. He needed to get some kind of reaction out this placid shade in front of him, anything. “Isn’t there something you want to say to him?” he asked.

“Be at peace,” Patroclus said again flatly, but his voice was strained.

“Don’t you remember him?” Zagreus pressed on, pushing Patroclus’s hand away. “Do you remember who I am, sir? What’s my name?” 

Patroclus looked away abruptly, shutting his eyes like he suddenly saw a ghastly corpse lying on the grass. 

“I don’t know, you are a stranger to me,” he said after a long time.

“But you are not unfamiliar,” he continued. He looked up and around, blinking slowly, as if finally noticing his surroundings. The behemoth pillars of gold, the luscious greenery, the soft light spilling out from somewhere above the mist, bright as the sun but without any warmth. 

“This is not Troy. You are no common Myrmidon soldier. You would not… belong here, if you were.”

Something flashed across his partly-obscured face, Zagreus thought it looked like… uncertainty? Fear? Fear was a common sight in Tartarus, but wholly absent and out of place in Elysium. He reached out to place a hand on the shade’s shoulder. “Patroclus, sir-“

Patroclus looked down at himself. “This is not my armour,” he muttered, and wrestled his helm off his head, more dark wet curls spilling out. He pulled at the buckles of his breastplate with shaking hands. Zagreus helped him undo the straps, wincing in sympathy at the marks they left from digging into his skin.

“I must have been wearing this when I-” Patroclus took a deep breath, and started again, “When I died.” Zagreus thought he looked miserable, soaked through and half-naked, shivering and still clutching the breastplate to his chest. He had Nyx’s cloak with him, so he took it out and draped it around Patroclus’s shoulders. He was not so worried about losing it; his possessions had a tendency to find their way back to him eventually.

“You should not have seen me like this,” said Patroclus.

That distant, slightly cutting tone was finally something Zagreus was familiar with. Normally he took it as his cue to leave, but he couldn’t bring himself to go quite yet.

“Well, I _am_ here,” he managed to say. His mind desperately searched for the right words that would _fix_ this, but came up blank over and over. “How’s your memory?”

“I remember now that I am in Elysium, and the frivolities that pass for noteworthy news which transpire here, but, parts of my life before still elude me. Presumably, there was something I wished to forget, and I drank from the Lethe. I expect I’ll recall why in a few hours.”

Speaking seemed to bring a little more strength into him with every word. Zagreus wanted to encourage him to keep talking, so he just asked the first thing on his mind. “Is this why you always call me stranger?”

“Partly, yes,” said Patroclus, sounding tired. “How many times have we crossed paths now?”

“Dozens, at least." Zagreus tried to recall if he ever noticed Patroclus with his eyes hazed over, withdrawn into himself more than usual. "And how many times did you not recognize me?”

“It’s still difficult to remember, but not often, I can resist the call of the Lethe most of the time.” Patroclus looked down, contemplatively running a thumb over the detailing of the breastplate he held. “However, this armour I remember quite well. Elysium often does not mark the difference between reality and memories of the dead.” He hurled it into the river with a sudden ferocity. Zagreus flinched, having to stop himself from reaching across to catch it. Instead they watched together as it disappeared into the roiling mist.

Patroclus rubbed his forehead. “Do you want to know a strange thing about the Lethe?”

“What?”

“It’s said to ease all sorrows, but in my experience it only covers them with falsehood. The memories of the fabricated life it has given me is a simple one, solitary and unburdened. It's as good a life as a soldier can hope for, I think. Yet, it feels incomplete. I can feel the shape of what’s missing, but it still doesn't come to me.”

“It was-” Zagreus stopped himself from saying the name again, wary of opening more wounds. “It was someone you loved. A lot.”

Patroclus laughed. “Of course, love. A more terrible thing than war, that I would chose to forget the former over the latter.”

 _Still I fear that Aphrodite’s power is the most terrible in all the world._ The achingly familiar, yet different words repeated in Zagreus’s mind, echoing ever louder until he had to say something: “Isn’t it worth having love, and whatever comes with it, than not have it at all?”

“When one is wounded, and you can offer something to ease the pain, do you expect them to refuse, out of some sense of sentimentality?” asked Patroclus. 

Zagreus looked away, his throat tight. “No, not for sentimentality, but maybe for something else.”

“Hm, like this Achilles. Sending a god halfway across hell to send me a message is, by itself, already a strong gesture. Perhaps that is meant to convince me of the depths of his devotion."

“He did hurt you before, I won’t deny that," said Zagreus.

Patroclus looked at him questioningly. Zagreus took a breath tried again: “Look, I don’t know about everything that happened between you, so it’s not right for me to say if it can be forgiven. And,” he swallowed. “The Achilles I know wouldn’t send me to pressure you into anything. If you don't want to reply to him, then... that's up to you.”

Patroclus finally nodded at that. “Then, not right now, you understand.”

Zagreus tried to sit up, gingerly propping himself up. He winced a little, prompting Patroclus to ask, “Do you need more Styx water? I have another bottle I could spare.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just needs a bit of rest.” He still felt a twinge in his side, but it’s probably healed as good as it can get, at least until the underworld takes him apart piece by piece and puts him back together again.

“Then stay a while, stranger, if you’re not in a hurry.”

Zagreus was in a hurry, always was. He could remember when he had nothing to be in a hurry about, and it seemed like a lifetime ago, but despite that, he sank back onto the grass again. “Sure, got all the time in the world.” 


End file.
